Ausgabe der Memoiren des deutschen Militärs

Not so long ago, I watched Petersen's wonderful 1981 film "Das Boot". After watching it, I wanted to read the memoirs of Werner H. A. Eisiger Atlantik. Der eisernen Särge. However, I did not find this book in bookstores in Cologne, in fact, as well as other books related to the memoirs of the German military in the tank forces, in the Luftwaffe, etc
Hence the question - are such books published in Germany? Is there any public interest in this kind of material?

There is a history section in every bookstore. There you will find half an antique bookcase, half a medieval bookcase and a whole modern bookcase. Then you will find another cabinet, which mainly deals with the history of the Third Reich and the Second World War and one with German-German history.

Books like the one you are looking for are somewhat outdated because they were written out of the need of former soldiers and for the need of former soldiers, focused on military things, focused on their own suffering, to ensure that they only did their duty and did not commit any war crimes. In books like these, the Nazis are essentially a negligible fringe group who just happened to have a lot of power because of the government, in a sense an accident of history.

Today's books are (usually) more critical and often deal with the Nazis in one's own family. The war is still dominant in literature, but the military perspective that ignores the cause and nature of the war and ignores the Holocaust can no longer be brought onto the market today.

There certainly was an interest in their accounts, and many (auto-)biographies were published between the 1950s and 1990s. But the dominant perception of the Wehrmacht was a revisionist one until recently. Only a public row in 1995 led to it becoming publicly accepted that the Wehrmacht had not stayed "clean" but had rather aided and abetted war crimes in the East on a large scale. And with the veteran's generation dying out, so is the public interest in their accounts (white-washed or otherwise). Like @El Quijote said, their books have largely been replaced in the public eye by the more comprehensive works from historians and other third parties.

Phillip1990 schrieb:

Hence the question - are such books published in Germany?

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

It has been published in Germany, but it looks like is out of stock as a new book.

You can buy it as a second hand book, though. If you do a Google search, you will find a number of places that sell it.

In case you didn't know and are interested: There is a quite recent publication on the actual journey upon which "Das Boot" was based:


Gerrit Reichert:
U 96 - Realität und Mythos: Der Alte und Lothar-Günther Buchheim

It is largely based upon the diary that the late Friedrich Grade https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Grade, U96's chief engineer kept (against orders). It sheds a totally different light on the relationship between Buchheim (Lt Werner) on the one hand and the sub's crew, especially the old man, on the other.

This book somewhat exemplifies el Quijote's and muck's statements: Buchheim like others (Werner, Carrell, Konsalik, maybe Brennecke, too) tried, and managed to white-wash their own doings in the Third Reich (most of them playing a more or less big role in the propaganda apparatus) and at the same time self-aggrandize their own actions.

Newer publications, amongst others, tend to put these authors back into their historical role. (In my opinion, we still carry a lot of propaganda inventions of WWII and its aftermath in our minds without knowing it - amongst others the total lack of political ambitions and thought and involvement of the Wehrmacht - and of course the superior quality of its officers and men as compared with their adversaries.)

U96 (the book) was widely acclaimed in its time and as far as I have seen, was on display in bookshops that usually seldom to never exhibited naval or military literature. "Das Boot", at the latest since it was shown on TV and at cinemas has had a deep impact of the little knowledge Germans have on the war at sea. So this book in consequence also reached a relatively wide audience.


If you'd like to read another more down to earth and less heroic novel about the Kriegsmarine's small fry's war at sea, look out for Wolfgang Ott: "Haie und kleine Fische". But don't be surprised: it also deals with young mens' thoughts and activities when on liberty ashore - quite similar to Buchheim. There's a movie from the 60s as well as a book. It's more than 25 years since I watched /read both but found them both quite worth the while. The book sometimes is a bit more gut-heabing than "Das Boot".

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